TO A MOSSY GRAVESTONE IN CAVERS CHURCHYARD.
WHERE waves the grass beneath yon cypress shade,
A shapeless mossy time-corroded stone,
Rain-drill'd, with furrowy surface, stands alone :—
I wish my head at last may there be laid,
Without sepulchral pomp or vain parade;
Such mockery vile the dead refuse to own,
Ill suited to the unseemly yellow bone
That lies beneath the grassy rind to fade.
Yet there the peasant's sober steps shall pass,
Whene'er the sacred Sabbath morn shall rise,
And the slow bell to morning prayer shall toll;
And while his staff divides the rustling grass,
"Here sleeps a youth unknown to fame," he cries;
"Calm be his sleep, and heaven receive his soul !"
GENIUS! if such may chance to dwell
Within the excavated bound
That rudely shapes this oaken cell,
And closes in its knotty round;
Genius! with acorn chaplet crown'd,
Thy hoar antiquity might well,
If fraught it were with mortal sound,
Of elder days a legend tell.
For many a course of sun and shade,
Tempest and calm, thy growth matured;
And many a year its circle made,
The while thy summer prime endured:
To flood and flame of heaven inured,
Slow centuries hast thou o'erstaid,
By stern, majestic might secured
From storms that wreck, or blights that fade,
And for long date ensured.
Thou, like a hermit sad and sage,
In silence lone thy dwelling hast;
Thine aspect is a living page,
Where times o'erflown their annals cast:
For through the watches of the past,
Thou hast beheld, as age on age
Dawn'd-hast beheld them setting fast,
And Time, on his long pilgrimage,
Still hurrying to the last.
And thou, that saw'st them wear away,
Dost fail. Even as the seasons glide,
Thy grandeur creeps to sure decay,
Amid the devastation wide:
For Time thy giant strength has tried,
And, sparely decked, thy branches grey
Hang, like old banners, at thy side,
To mark his conquering sway.
Ere long, the vernal year, in vain,
Shall seek this trembling shade of thine; Thee to infoliate, ne'er again
Shall Spring her freshest garland twine. The presage of thy slow decline
O'er all thy silver'd bark is plain Inscribed, in many a fatal sign, Portentous of thy ruined reign.
But, sure, a whisper faintly broke,
Startling the twilight air!
Was it the Spirit of the Oak,
Or Fancy haunting there,
With seeming voice-Again it spoke!
Nor mortal hearing dare
To still the echoes it awoke,
Or bid its tongue forbear.
"Child of the dust! to being sprung
Long since these boughs with age were bent,
Thy useless lay is idly sung,
Thy breath in vain conjecture spent.
"What though with ancient pomp I wear
The spoil of years, for ever flown ;
What though in dryad lore I bear
The memory of things unknown;
"Thee little it imports to hear,
How, o'er the waning orb of time,
"How long soe'er the measure given To bound thy moments fugitive,
These shatter'd boughs, though rent and riven, The narrow confines shall o'erlive.
"Thou, blending in thy compass small Impending age with infant birth, Ere many seasons pass, must fall,
And mingle with thy parent earth.
"Yet, though the feeble frame that moulds
Thy substance, all decaying be,
That frame of fragile dust enfolds
The germ of immortality.
"Spirit, of origin sublime!
Age is maturing strength to thee;
Death, thy best heritage, and time
The portal of eternity."
Voice of the Oak! whate'er thou be,
Of wild and visionary race,
That calls such things to memory
As no light fancy should efface;
Still may thy warning hold a place
Within my heart, nor pass away,
Till latest time's faint shadow trace
The dawning of celestial day!
Ar length her sorrows drew the lines of care
Across her brow, and sketched her story there :
Years of internal suffering dried the stream
That lent her youthful eye its liquid beam.
A mild composure to its glance succeeds,
Her gayest look still spoke of widow's weeds.
Her smile was that of patience, not of ease,
An effort made to cover, or to please;
While grief, with thorny pencil, day by day,
In silence delv'd the flagging cheek away;
Chased the gay bloom that peaceful thoughts bestow,
To spread, instead, the sallow tints of woe;
And where the magic dimple used to start,
In early wrinkles wrote-a broken heart.
And when at length, as satiate with spoil,
Grief seem'd relenting from her daily toil,
Time, who had check'd her power, assumed his own,
(His labours he divides, but not his throne,)
And features that in sorrow's mould were cast,
His master chisel finishes at last.
Perchance, the casual undiscerning gaze,
That never read a history in a face,
In the gay circle had supposed her gay,
Nor marked the nascent traces of decay:
But oh! to those whose nicer feelings take
The fine impression that a look can make,
Who, skilled by sorrows of their own, descry
The prisoned secret speaking in the eye,
(As weeping captives at their windows pine,)
To them there was a voice in every line.
The brow by effort raised to seem serene,
Round every smile the circling wrinkle seen;
The sudden cloud that came, and pass'd away,
Chased by a cheerless struggle to be gay;
At certain words or names the quick, short sigh,
And, when neglected long, the absent eye,
That seemed on images long past to fall,
Unconscious of aught else these told them all.
But few among the selfish, busy, gay, Permit a quiet face to stop their way; A face that holds no lure, no tribute seeks, Demands no homage, nothing strange bespeaks; That looks, as hundreds look that they have known, Just mark'd enough to call some name its own :O few in folly's course can check their speed, The simple lines of character to read: Or, if they pause, that rude unfeeling eye, The cold inquiry, contumelious sigh, And all the world's gross pity can impart, Are caustic to the festers of the heart.
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